2018-2019 Schedule

Here’s the tentative schedule for our 2018-2019 season. Stay tuned for more information on the season’s presentations, lectures, workshops, competitions shortly. We hope to see all of you back for our 65th season which runs from September 2018 to June 2019! After each meeting, many club members head on over for some shooting at the Botanical Gardens (it’s just across the street!) or the Zoo, or to a local restaurant so consider joining us for that too! Each month we have a monthly photo competition where members compete in their group (open to all subject matter) and can also compete in our monthly theme competition, black-and-white competition and our Altered Reality (manipulated image) competition.

2018-2019 Schedule

Saturday, Sept. 8 Opening Day Presentation “Creativity and How to Boost Your Creative Abilities to Become a Better Photographer” by Joe Edelman

Join us for our Opening day festivities on Sept. 8th. Our presenter will be Joe Edelman. We will also have a raffle and a light luncheon. Join us in Room 327/399 at 9:45am.

If we all have the potential to be creative, why is it so hard? For starters, many of the ways that we traditionally learn photographic techniques are creativity killers.

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We will begin by looking at the science behind creativity. Where does it come from? Are humans born with it or do they learn it? Is it possible to make yourself more creative? The answers from research done by cognitive psychologists will surprise you, frustrate you, and excite you.

Armed with a better understanding of how creativity works, Joe will help you lay the foundation to be able to develop more creative skills and become a better, more creative photographer, with tips that will help you to see and think about your subjects in ways that you never have before.

Joe Edelman is an award-winning photographer and educator and YES – that crazy PHOTO Joe Edelman on YouTube! His work is featured frequently on well-known photography blogs including Fstoppers, DIYPhotography, PetaPixel, Lifehacker, ISO1200, Shutterbug and LensVid among others. His primary subject – beautiful people!

His photographs have been published internationally in magazines like Maxim, Cosmopolitan, Get Fit, Shape and Good Light Magazine to name a few. He has been called upon to complete assignments for both the New York Times and The Los Angeles Times and has serviced commercial advertising clients from all over the United States.

We’re thrilled to present a talk by professional photographer and former entertainment attorney Peter Alessandria. In 2009, after more than 20 years as an entertainment lawyer, Mr. Alessandria left the law to pursue his passion for photography full time. Today he is the Official Photographer for Fireworks by Grucci® and is a freelance commercial and fine art photographer based in the New York City area. In the past several years, Mr. Alessandria has won 63 awards for his photography and has seen his work published online and in newspapers and magazines around the world. His first book of photography “New York City Nights – Book 1” was published in 2017. His second book, “New York Cityscapes” (Amherst Media), is a collaboration with six other NYC area photographers and is available for pre-order on Amazon. He speaks, lectures and offers workshops to amateur and professional photographers alike.

In his talk, Mr. Alessandria will discuss his career change, the “business” of fine art photography, and he will then show selected images from his recent work. There will also be a Q&A session for members to ask questions. We hope to see you there!

Saturday, Nov. 3 Competition #3

Our third competition of the season! The theme competition is Textures. The judge is Kathy Baca. Upload your photos by Thursday 11/1 at 11:59pm.

Saturday, Nov. 17 Presentation on Focus Stacking from Chris Moore

Have you ever wanted to increase depth of field and, yet take full advantage of your lens’ sweet spot? This is usually about two to three stops closed down from the lens’ widest aperture. That is where the lens can deliver its best performance.

Sometimes the temptation is to close your lens down to its smallest aperture so you can increase the depth of field that way – which you can. The problem with this, however; is that you will introduce diffraction which is an optical phenomenon and is governed by the laws of physics… which are unchangeable. Yes, you may increase the amount of your scene/subject that is in focus from a near point to a far point but the overall sharpness will be degraded due to diffraction.

If you are photographing very small objects like flowers and/or insects then the depth of field is usually very small – often just a few millimeters or fractions of an inch.

If you want to photograph landscapes with a close foreground (like flowers or pebbles), middle ground and background that spans a great distance focus stacking can be used here too.

The challenge is that, since depth of field is controlled by aperture (among other things) you may not be able to get everything into focus if you use the sweet spot. What to do? What to do?

The answer is: Focus Stacking.

OK. So what’s that?

It’s a method of taking a series of focus “slices” of your scene/subject each focused at a different distance and then putting the sharp parts of each “slice” together later in specialized software or Photoshop.

Chris will demonstrate the process live with a tethered camera, third party software (Helicon Soft and Helicon Remote), Photoshop and small, detailed subjects in a small tabletop studio environment.

Chris also plans to show samples he have created in the past and, by importing the component “slices” into the software, demonstrate how the process works.

It should be a full morning and Chris’ goal is to enable the BPS members with a new, powerful, photographic tool.

Saturday, Dec. 1 Competition #4

Our fourth competition of the season! The theme competition is New York City Scenes. The judge is Phil Echo. Upload your photos by Monday 11/26 at 11:59pm.

Saturday, Dec. 15 Holiday Party

Join us for our annual holiday party — it’s potluck so bring a favorite dish to share! Plus, we’ll be holding a business meeting giving you a chance to give the Club feedback on our activities. And we’ll have a raffle too!

Saturday, Jan. 5, 2019 Competition #5

Our fifth competition of the season! The theme competition is Reptiles. The judge is Walter Kimmel. Upload your photos by Tuesday 1/1 at 11:59pm.

Join us for a presentation by Hunt’s Camera on mirrorless cameras. More details soon. You’ll also be able to purchase some new goodies for your camera bag from Hunt’s.

Saturday, Feb. 2 Competition #6

Our sixth competition of the season! The theme competition is Still Life (setup done at home). The judge is TBD. Upload your photos by Monday 1/28 at 11:59pm.

Saturday, Feb 16 Open Critique with Phil Echo

Here’s your chance to have your images critiqued without any scores so you can make changes and submit those images in upcoming competitions. Phil Echo will be here to review your photos, give constructive advice on how to improve them. Enter up to 4 images by February 12th! Remember, you only benefit from submitting if you’re going to be at the meeting to hear what Phil has to say!

Saturday, March 2 Competition #7 Cancelled due to weather!

Our seventh competition of the season! The theme competition is Interior Architecture. The judge is Nick Palmieri. Upload your photos by Monday 2/25 at 11:59pm.

Saturday, March 16 Presentation – Tom and Lisa Cuchara

This program will cover in- camera techniques as well as post-processing tips for creating stitched images. Stitched images can be great for panoramas, composite backgrounds and for tight areas. The logistics and benefits or taking two vertical images at 30-40mm rather than one
horizontal at 17mm will be discussed. Multi image and multi exposure-image combinations will also be presented, for example, many of my panoramic images are 77 images combined, 11 vertical across with 7 exposures each. Vertoramas can also be created to help with building keystoning and/or to add impact.

Saturday, April 6 Competition #8

Our eighth competition of the season! The theme competition is The Color Red. The judge is Hazel Meredith. Upload your photos by Monday 4/1 at 11:59pm.

Saturday, April 13 Rescheduled Competition from March

This is the rescheduled seventh competition of the season which we cancelled on 3/2 due to weather. The theme competition is Interior Architecture. The judge is Ron Wyatt. Ron will give a presentation as well!

Saturday, April 27 Competition #9

Our last competition of the season! And, yes, it’s in April not May because of scheduling conflicts at the Prep. The theme competition is Panoramas (Vertical or Horizontal). The judge is Jennifer Khordi. Upload your photos by Monday 4/22 at 11:59pm. And, don’t forget, you need to pull together your End-of-the-Year photos (only from the ones you entered this year) as you’ll need to upload them by Wednesday 5/8.

Saturday, May 11 EOY Competition

Compete in our End of Year Competitions with photos you’ve entered in our regular competitions. Photos will need to be uploaded by Wednesday, May 8th. Judges are Laura Warren, Chuck Pine and Steve Morton.

Saturday, June 15 Annual End of Year Party & Awards Luncheon!

Hard to believe the season is over, but it’s time for our 2018-2019 Members Awards. Join us for our End of Year Party and Awards celebration, our annual Slide Presentation: “Best of 2018-2019″ (available for purchase as a DVD too!) and more. Bring a dish if you wish.